Cebu Pacific, Where Everyone “Cannot” Fly

This is a very late posting. I have a lot of travel to post before this travel happened and I wanted to post it first. This happened last Feb. 5, 2016. The story goes like this:

It’s 5:AM as I am writing this one. I travelled from Singapore at 6:00pm and arrived in Manila at 10pm. I left Manila at 3am and arrived in Cebu at 4am and will be taking another plane to Camiguin at 6am. When I arrived at the transfer desk, the customer service told me that my flight will be delayed to 7:55am, a mere 30minutes delayed.

At 8am, still no sign of aircraft and so I went to the floor steward and there was a further delayed of an hour. I asked him why I didn’t receive an email or a call because the airline normally inform us for any delayed flights. He paused for a while and told me that maybe they just announced today. So, he didn’t know about the delayed flight as well. I know he cannot do anything about it and he doesn’t have a control. But CebuPacific should at least make a considerable measure to all their passengers.

At 9am, still, no sign of aircraft and I started to get annoyed. I am not disappointed about this 2 hrs delayed and I am not blogging this to give a bad image to the airline but I’m blogging this to ask a better service a valued customer or frequent flyer deserves.

A bad story goes like this:

A British friend will fly with me from Singapore to Camiguin. He booked a flight from Singapore-Cebu-Camiguin since there is no direct flight from Singapore to Camiguin. I booked for myself from Singapore-Manila-Cebu-Camiguin to minimize the cost and spend my night in the airport. The difference if I book from Singapore-Cebu-Camiguin vs Singapore-Manila-Cebu-Camiguin is $175. Big bucks to save. The flight from Singapore-Cebu-Camiguin was 12midnight and will arrive in Camiguin at 7:20am, while the flight that I booked was 6pm and arrived in Camiguin at 7:20am, same flight with him. So I settle the latter to save. After almost a month, I received an email that the flight from Manila to Cebu is rescheduled to 3AM, instead of 1AM. Fine for me.

Then, I received a message from my friend that his flight was also changed. It became Singapore (depart at 3AM) and will arrive in Cebu at 6:45AM. Now, the problem is that Cebu to Camiguin flight is 6:35AM, which there is already a misconnection of 10minutes.

They gave us options:

CHANGE THE FLIGHT TO ANOTHER DATE. His flight is supposed to be Feb 5 and the option to change the date is Feb 3 at 6am which is 2 days earlier and he cannot do it because of his job constraint. So, a no-no.

RE-ROUTE THE FLIGHT. They suggest/recommend from Singapore-Manila-Cagayan de Oro instead. My friend told me that he already spend 90 minutes over the phone and they cannot solve the problem. HE WAS PISSED OFF! To neutralize the situation, I told him that I will call. Damn, I spent 2 hrs over the phone and they cannot solve the problem!

CANCEL THE FLIGHT AND REFUND. I laughed bitchily and told the lady over the phone that she’s going to stop the people for their vacation. A stupid suggestion actually.

CANCEL AND RE-BOOK. The problem is that there is no more flight from Cebu to Camiguin and he might lost this flight. I asked her if they can hold his flight while cancelling to do a re-booking (stupid idea) since he already booked it. She said it’s impossible. Honestly, I don’t know if all of the system of the airline are like that. I just don’t get it.

The very last option was to get an approval to change it to Singapore-Manila-Cebu and Cebu-Camiguin is as is. She said that we need to call back after 48hours. After 2 days, I called back and another customer service answered the call and she said that our request has been rejected. They cannot change the system.

I don’t want to force myself to not to understand it so I asked her if there is a delay from Cebu to Camiguin and she said no, so it’s really a misconnection. She said that the very thing that they can do again is to cancel the flight and refund it. I really, really hope that they stop this kind of suggestion. They can at least say something good to their customers. I told the lady that we cannot cancel the flight and guess what she told me? “Ma’am, the least we can do is to cancel your flight and book to another airline”. What a shitty thing to say. Hi CebuPacific, did you orient your staff? I was really pissed off so I told her, “Miss, do you think that we are going to book with your airline if there is another airline that will go to that island? Are you aware that only CebuPacific flew to Camiguin?” I received a long pause.

This is so far my most disappointing experience in CebuPacific. Hope they will do something with their service.

Going back to the airport, there was a further delayed of 3hrs. Yes, another 3 fucking hrs! Instead of 7:55am, it was delayed until 11am. Of all the hassles of talking over the phone 1 week ago, perfect Cebupacific.